


i don't care if i never get back

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Alex Delaware Series - Jonathan Kellerman
Genre: Baseball, Chocolate Box Exchange, Chocolate Box Exchange 2018, Depression, Gen, In Media Res, Loneliness, Male Friendship, POV First Person, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: I didn’t think I’d ever feel completely settled. Not after what’d happened.





	i don't care if i never get back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinx_r](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinx_r/gifts).



> This is just a little snippet based around the idea that Alex makes a mistake on a case that sends him into a depression, which leads to Robin leaving him. Milo, being the good friend that he is, comes to flush him out.
> 
> Title from "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

The night sky was the shade of a bruised plum left out too long on the kitchen table. A soft breeze caressed my cheek, played with my hair like a lover. I reached into the bag, grabbed a handful of fish food and tossed it to the waiting koi. They gobbled it up and clamored for more.

The place was quiet—too quiet—with Robin gone. And a steady stream of cases—revenue, distraction—had dried up. I felt guilty longing for death and destruction, but the truth was, I _needed_ it. I saw the occasional patient, prescribed therapy and meds, read coffee table books on bird watching and photography, and waited for the day Milo would return with a case. 

Milo didn’t come. Not for a few months, though he called occasionally or dropped in on me when he had time to spare.

Until, finally, he came. Parked his large, lumpy body on my couch and told me about the latest case that’d been stumping him.

Milo balanced a plate of leftover lasagna on one knee. He tried valiantly to keep his tie from introducing itself to the food, but it was stubborn. He finally just unknotted it and tugged it off, draping it over the back of my shabby old couch.

“Alex, I need you on this one.” Milo picked at the lasagna with his fork. He didn’t seem to have much of an appetite, which alarmed me.

“It’s been a while,” I said.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Milo said, as he set the plate—and the mostly untouched lasagna—aside. “Those kids. It wasn’t—”

I didn’t want to think about _those kids_ , or my grave error in judgment. I’d spent the last several months thinking about _those kids_ and how I’d let them down. How I’d let their parents down.

I sat back and ran my fingers over the creases in my khakis. The repetitive movement soothed me, somewhat, but not completely. Never completely. I didn’t think I’d ever feel completely settled. Not after what’d happened.

“That’s not why…” I trailed off. I’d said more than I wanted, already. “I just don’t see what good I’d be. I’d just get in the way.”

Milo pierced me with an ice-cold stare. “That didn’t bother you before,” he said, slinging an arm over the back of the couch. His shabby sports coat was the same shade of brown as the couch. And probably just as old. “C’mon, Alex. You’ve been holed up in this place for months. Getting you to answer your phone’s like pulling teeth. This ain’t like you.”

I sighed and dragged a hand down my face. It was easier when I had Robin and Blanche around. The place didn’t feel quite so empty or lonely.

I was thinking of selling it and moving back to the Midwest. I informed Milo of this. The stormy look in his eyes suggested he disapproved of my plan. But it wasn’t up to him whether or not I stayed.

“Whaddaya mean you’re moving back?” Milo sat forward and rested his hands over his knees.

“There’s nothing keeping me here. Not anymore,” I said.

“Your work?” Milo suggested. He clenched his jaw and a vein throbbed in his forehead. “Our riveting conversations?”

He just didn’t understand that I couldn’t stay here, in this house. Hell, in L.A. This wasn’t home for me anymore, not after what happened.

Every waking moment I spent in this house was a reminder of what I didn’t have anymore.

The yawning silence and the empty rooms. The cozy little studio I hadn’t been in since Robin left.

“There _is_ no case, is there?” 

Milo looked guilty and couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “Alex, I’m sorry, but this ain’t right. Hiding yourself away like this.” 

 “Look, Milo, I—”

“I get it, it sucks,” he said, but he didn’t get it. Milo’d been in a happy, relatively drama-free relationship for nearly three decades. “But you gotta move on. This ain’t healthy.”

“Thank you for this obviously well-intentioned talk, but I’m not changing my mind.”

“I thought you were gonna say that.” Milo sighed and heaved his bulk off the couch. He jammed a hand in his pocket and withdrew a crumpled envelope.

My eyes fell on the envelope as I tried to decipher the squiggly writing on the front.

Milo thrust the envelope toward me, wordlessly, and I reached in.

“Dodgers tickets?” I raised my eyebrows at him as I tucked the tickets back in the envelope.

“What’s more All-American than a couple brews, some dogs, and front row seats for Kershaw vs. the Diamondbacks?”

I’d never known Milo to be a baseball person. Neither was I, though Robin and I had occasionally gone to a game when our busy schedules allowed for it.

I knew what Milo was trying to do and it wasn’t going to work. But I appreciated the effort, nonetheless.

“All right,” I said, handing the envelope back to him. “Go Dodgers.”

 ***

The game was fairly unremarkable, as far as baseball games go. The teams traded the lead until the final inning, when the Dodgers walked off on a Cody Bellinger homerun.

Anyway, I hadn’t gone for the entertainment. Sitting in plastic seats and chowing down on overpriced hot dogs was hardly my idea of entertainment. The company, however, was nice.

I invited Milo in for some coffee before he headed back, but he waved me off.

“Just so you know,” he said, as he turned to head down the walkway. He glanced at me over his shoulder. His black hair fell into his forehead and he slicked it back from his face.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“I didn’t take you out to try and change your mind about leaving,” he said. “You’re still my friend and I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much as I used to. Things’ve been hectic. Just wanted you to know I hadn’t forgotten about you.”

“That thought never crossed my mind, Milo,” I said. “I had fun tonight. It was good seeing you.”

Milo nodded—I detected the hint of a smile creasing his face—before trundling off.

I shut the door behind him and turned, eyeing all the moving boxes. Labeled with **KITCHEN** and **DEN** and **BEDROOM** , in my neat print.

I walked over to one of the boxes and opened it, peering in.

Gilt-framed pictures of me and Robin and the dogs. Family photo albums. A heavy volume titled _The Luthier’s Handbook_.

I was trying to escape and here I was, planning to lug the past right along with me anyway.

I supposed Milo was right. I could start over without fleeing. That’d necessitate admitting Milo _had_ been right, though, and he’d never let me live it down.

As I started unpacking the first box—setting the handbook back on the coffee table, the photo albums back on the mantle above the fireplace, the framed pictures back on the end-tables on either side of the old couch, a signed baseball I’d picked up at that night’s game with Milo—I realized I could live with that.


End file.
